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Im thinking of giving up the gites.


dave21478
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Hello

I'm with you on this, I gave up last year after spending 4 summers answering the same dull questions every Sat, about life in France and how they'd love to do it and how they hated the UK now.  The cleaning up was a nightmare for me  too, the worst was  two teenage boys, tissues everywhere enough detail I think! 

I only had one bad booking like you Macky but it stays with you.  I don't really remember what they moaned about but moan they did and it feels like a personal insult.   That was in my last season and was a large factor in the decision to give up.  I sold up last year and bought a small place with little room for visitors let alone guests.  I am now free each weekend and it's great.

Do it!

Panda

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Reading all this just confirms that we made absolutely the right decision in NOT going into the gite business !

We love having house guests but then it's more or less limited to immediate family and a very small number of close friends so we can usually go a bit more than 3 days before the 'fish start to stink' as Cat puts it [:D]

Better still for me because 'er indoors can have her nutty sister over when I'm safely out of the way offshore [:P] 

 

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Cor, Mackyfrance, I honestly thought I'd arranged to have all guests with computers eliminated[:D][:D]  Proves you can't be too careful!!

Thanks anyway for your good wishes.  We've got booking til end of October so whatever happens we are committed here for this year.  OH has got full time job and it is just too tiring feeding and watering people when he comes home at 7.00 at night.  It has been a great way for us to get established here but time to do something else.  If house doesn't sell I will have a re-think anyway. 

The problem as I see it is that we need to find a house with little guest accomodation as whilst we have the B & B we can pretend the rellies are just troublesome guests.  Once we have our own home they'll be less easy to get rid of.  Here we can say 'Oh you must go - the room is booked tomorrow!'[6]

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[quote user="betoulle"] - why can't they ever phone to give you an idea as to when to expect them?????  If nothing else I would like to know when I can start drinking...[/quote]

This is the one thing, in nearly twenty years of doing it, that still, to put it mildly, puzzles me. Does it not enter their heads that we're real people, who might possibly have a social life? (Well, not much of one, but if there's any, it tends to be Saturday evenings in the summer.) Contract states arrival between 4pm and 8pm, they phone a few days before arrival, they say 5.30pm, I say please let us know if you're going to be any later (or earlier), they roll up at 9.30pm saying "Oh, we thought we'd have something to eat on the way!". Yes, well, I haven't, because it's waiting on the table at my friend's house 15km away. And I've been sitting around near the front window in my best clothes for four hours when I could have been a) out enjoying myself; b) doing something useful; c) walking the dogs who are used to doing it a few hours earlier. There's no excuse nowadays, everyone has a mobile phone.

Lee&nik, this is the forum section for gite owners. We like to moan amongst ourselves. We have things in common to moan about. We are also capable of pasting a big smile across our faces and doing business in a professional and friendly manner. When you own a gite, come and join in.

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It's often said that the worst job in the world is working with the public, I wouldn't last a fortnight !

Are these sort of behaviours not just another symptom of the selfish 'me' society with little thought or respect for others though ?

 

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Funny all this because in all the years I've been renting property for holidays I have never been met on arrival by the owners!  This doesn't bother me at all so maybe it's the answer for all of you who have this problem.  Just leave a key somewhere pre-arranged and get on with your lives.   You can always pop round some time during the stay, maybe the next morning?

Sorry, by the way, for being a customer and butting in on the owners' personal and private thread!  But like Ernie, I find this whole board on the forum so often just confirms that it's not a business I would ever have wanted to be in.  You'd have to pay me a small fortune to persuade me to do it.

Re mobile phones.  It costs a lot to use one abroad so maybe this is a factor in people not ringing if they're late.  Perhaps if you gave them your mobile number too, they would text you, which is a lot cheaper.

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[quote user="Cerise"]Wooly - I know we need their money but, as OH points out, they are paying to stay here, not buying US.[/quote]

Ah Cerise, would it were so. There is an attitude I am afraid which I experienced somewhat when selling my last home which says that "if we are paying you for something, be it a home or a gite holiday or whatever, you are there to serve us and we may behave as we please, and you should be grateful because either you need our dosh or because you live in Paradise and we live in Whereever."

I used to think the kids were the worst, but I realised after a bit it is the parents mainly.

 

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An enquiry last year to which we sent  the usual bumf including photos on line.  They came back and said "Do you have a photograph of the bathroom?"  to which I replied "We are letting the house, not selling it".  They still came !

We try to be there to meet our guests, but if we can't, we leave them a note and a key.  One day OH forgot to leave the key and when we got back, our guests had had to climb in through an open upstairs window!  Luckily they took it very well (and probably dined out on it for weeks!!)

In 20 years, we have had no 'impossible' guests, and only one lot who tried pushing things too far.  I just walked away rather than get into an argument.  We have always asked our guests if there was anything we could have done, or improvement we could have made.  There have been a couple of useful suggestions, which we acted on, but other than that, they have all been satisfied.  So if ANYONE DARED to get difficult, we would just refer them to our visitors' book ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

I guess we have been lucky, but we stipulate :  no young children, no smokers, no pets.  And we don't have a pool.....  In spite of the 'no children' thing, we have actually accepted any that have asked, but not under 7 - we say the bikes are adult ones.  The children that we have had have been delightful ! ! ! !

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We put a little form in our information pack in the properties with a feed back section on it. We have had some good feedback that we have acted on but some things can be out of your hands really.

I could not believe one set of people we had here. They came over in late may for a family wedding locally, Anyway it was not the warmest time (Last year) but they seemed pretty happy with the temperature in the properties. It was only after they had left that we found they had been slowly burning our library of hard backed books!!! They did not ask if we had any wood etc and even in the library we had magazines which they could have burnt and we would not have been so put out. But books... I really cannot believe that sane people would do such a thing it really made us feel down after finding this.

They certainly would not be aloud to return here. These sort of people really do make you feel that is it worth it. But when you get the other people that are over the moon with what they find and they can really relax it makes you feel a whole lot better. Especially when you read the guest books.

 

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[quote user="Thebiga"]

I could not believe one set of people we had here. They came over in late may for a family wedding locally, Anyway it was not the warmest time (Last year) but they seemed pretty happy with the temperature in the properties. It was only after they had left that we found they had been slowly burning our library of hard backed books!!!

[/quote]This should be illegal, Thebiga.  Bloomin' 'eck.
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[quote user="Thebiga"]

It was only after they had left that we found they had been slowly burning our library of hard backed books!!!

[/quote]

That is beyond weird. In my book, anyway. [;-)] What nationality were they? Just so that I can be really judgemental. [:D]

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[quote user="Thebiga"]

 we found they had been slowly burning our library of hard backed books!!! They did not ask if we had any wood etc and even in the library we had magazines which they could have burnt  [/quote]

 

That is just SO extraordinary! Quite incredible, how could they even have had the idea? The mind really boggles..

Sorry to butt in, as I am no gite owner, and not ever likely to become one willingly, now much less than ever.....[:D]

Not after reading all your accounts, no way!

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[quote user="5-element"][quote user="Thebiga"]

 we found they had been slowly burning our library of hard backed books!!! They did not ask if we had any wood etc and even in the library we had magazines which they could have burnt  [/quote]

That is just SO extraordinary! Quite incredible, how could they even have had the idea? The mind really boggles..

Sorry to butt in, as I am no gite owner, and not ever likely to become one willingly, now much less than ever.....[:D][/quote]

We had some New Zealanders who asked us if we had an axe (this, I hasten to add, was in July!).  I asked why they wanted an axe and they showed me some off-cuts of pine planks we had left in the barn (we'd used them for bardage on the outside of the barn).  They said they wanted to light the woodburner.  I had to point out that a) we had removed the internal workings of the woodburner, and b) if they were cold we could provide them with a mobile gas heater.  Why didn't they just ask instead of helping themselves?  We might have been saving the off-cuts for something.....  These same people emptied the washing up liquid we had left them into a jam jar and took the squeezy bottle.......hardly big stuff, but penny pinching or what?????

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[:D][quote user="cooperlola"]

Funny all this because in all the years I've been renting property for holidays I have never been met on arrival by the owners!  This doesn't bother me at all so maybe it's the answer for all of you who have this problem.  Just leave a key somewhere pre-arranged and get on with your lives.   You can always pop round some time during the stay, maybe the next morning?[/quote]

We all choose different ways of doing it. I prefer to meet the people - we're next door, the main house and gite being two of the buildings around a central courtyard. I don't want people turning up when I'm out, thinking our house is their holiday home*, or poking around in the other buildings, and I prefer to establish a rapport with them as they're going to be living next door for a week or two. I want them to know how things work - many haven't encountered double-locking doors, twisty window-openers, French pull-up waste thingies on the basin, weekly rubbish collections, etc. And, of course, the dire warnings about putting unsuitable items down the lav [+o(]. If I didn't do the guided tour I'd have to have notices stuck everywhere - not nice, and people often don't read anyway.

*And, despite having seen photos of the property they're about to stay in, and, presumably, the booking having been made partly on the strength of its appearance (the first thing people respond to in an ad is the photograph), we had one family move into someone else's gite ½km down the road. They unpacked, put their food in the cupboards and fridge, started cooking, sat the kids down to watch TV, apparently not having noticed it was an entirely different cottage with a different number of bedrooms. When the 'real' occupants turned up an hour later there was a bit of an altercation (which we weren't aware of as we were patiently waiting...).

So the first thing I do is check their name!
[quote user="cooperlola"]You'd have to pay me a small fortune to persuade me to do it.[/quote]
Oh, it's fine most of the time. We're just letting off steam amongst people with similar experience[:D] .
[quote user="cooperlola"]Re mobile phones.  It costs a lot to use one abroad so maybe this is a factor in people not ringing if they're late.[/quote] 
Not much compared to the overall expenditure, and it's far cheaper than it was a few years ago. Sorry, but that is the one thing that really riles me - all the others are simply 'grumpy old woman' moanings and funny stories. But not telling someone who's expecting you at a certain time that you're going to be four hours late is very bad manners, pure and simple.

 

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Thanks Jo - the lack of a phone call gets me every Saturday.....in our instance we have 2 gites & 4 B&B rooms, so on a bad Saturday(like last week) we can have a family & up to five couples all arriving between 4 & 8pm.  In our case we have electric gates, so one of us has to be around to let them in - can turn into a vigil if they say they are arriving at 5-5.30 & eventually turn up at 8pm with everybody else as happened last week...  I always ask them which port they are arriving at & at what time - on the pretext of sending them a ViaMichelin to help plan the route but really so I can have a very rough idea as to when to expect them ....... they all promise to phone but rarely do (unless they get lost round Niort or take a wrong turn off the motorway, then they are calling every 20mins....) The best ones are the guests who fly in as I can monitor the flight arrival on-line & roughly calculate when they will turn up..... At least with the electric gates we can tell them in advance by email that if they turn up before 4pm (yes, we have had them arrive in the past at 11am expecting to enter a fully prepared gite) the chances are there will be no-one to let them in.....the house & gites are so far from the gate we couldn't possibly hear them.......

Have found over the years that many guests arrive so stressed by the journey &/their working lives that they become blind, so a little tour does help.........had one couple who ate their meal the first night with wooden spoons as they couldn't find the cutlery which was sitting where you would expect it in a drawer........likewise, many guests have failed to find the hoover & loo brush but thats a different story......

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Would it be possible to ask (at time of booking) for their cell phone number, so that IF they don't show up around the expected time, you could call them?  Reason given, you often have errands to run, tasks to take care of, etc.

I'd have no problem giving my cell number.  Course, I would call if I was going to be late too, but still.

Who's to say other folks would answer, but I can't see why not.

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Before moving permanently to France and our then home in Normandie but now in the Vendee.  We used to let our house and fortunately or unfortunately it was furnished to our tastes and equally the rental in our view reflected then market prices and the house itself.

However I had one enquiry from a Welsh gentleman (I too am Welsh) asking about the mountain bikes.  I replied that we had two and he then said there was four of them coming so please buy another two mountain bikes ahead of their holiday.  We declined their invitation.

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Well, Another saturday arrives and again, there is something I would really like to go an see on in a town 40km away, but no...Im waiting patiently for this lot to bugger off so I can clean up and then wait for the next lot.

LAst night one of the arriving families called to ask what time they could arrive at. Turns out they are already here, having spent the last week in the village campsite! I told them to phone at lunchtime and I would let them know if the gite was ready or not.

If they have already spent a week here, I assume they have already exhausted the possibilities for things to do localy, so they either intend to lounge around the gite all week, or will be travelling further afield each day for activities. I hope its the latter!

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Me too...the families who left this morning are all regulars who want to come back so gites were spotless - all we had to do was dismantle bunk beds in big gite & replace with twin beds etc   The large family arriving are also regular guests - very organised, have phoned from airport so know exactly what time to expect them - great.  No arrivals in B&B as every one staying put. Next w/end the annual w/end from hell, (14 out, 14 in...)but I know the large family will leave the gites in a good state as they have already booked their slot for 2009........hope I dont regret making that statement next weekend....

Have a good August everyone

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